Opera Company's "Tosca'

Why doesn't Mimi see a doctor? Why doesn't Madame Butterfly figure out she's been deserted?

Oh, never mind. On Puccini, just fetch up the next aria. But Tosca does go a little far.

You know the story: Floria Tosca, an actress of easy virtue but a heart of gold, is the object of Police Chief Scarpia's lecherous affections. When her lover, the painter Cavaradossi, becomes accidentally entangled with a fugitive revolutionary, Angelotti, Scarpia has him tortured to reveal Angelotti's whereabouts, and condemned to death when he refuses to do so.

Tosca agrees to yield to Scarpia to save Cavaradossi, but kills him instead after extracting a safe conduct pass and a promise that her lover's execution will be a mock one. But Scarpia double-crosses her; the bullets are real, and Cavaradossi dies, without benefit of aria.

Why hang around?

My question here: Why, with a safe conduct pass in hand and Scarpia dead, does Tosca not simply rescue Cavaradossi and skip the execution?

Scarpia's explanation of why the execution must seem to proceed is that he needs to protect his reputation; for the lovers to simply skip town would suggest bribery. But Scarpia is dead. His reputation doesn't need protecting, and Tosca's interests are hardly served by hanging around town until his body is discovered.

True, the safe conduct pass might seem a little suspicious. But Tosca is a persuasive lady. And even if the obvious doesn't occur to her, why doesn't Cavaradossi point it out? He's a simple boy, but not actually retarded.

A downright silly aria

Another problem concerns Tosca's great second act aria, Vissi d'arte, in which she depicts herself as a virtuous innocent caught in Scarpia's clutches. This certainly isn't the girl we meet in Act I, who, jealous and imperious, demands that Cavaradossi cover up all traces of another woman who's worked her way into his portrait of Mary Magdalene. Tosca may be many things, but a blushing virgin she's not, and it isn't the Madonna whose portrait she wants to reflect her.

In terms of character, therefore, Vissi d'arte is plain silly. Given, too, that Tosca is just about to commit murder, the aria makes as little sense in terms of the action to come as it does in terms of the lady we already know.

These aren't insuperable problems for a great dramatic actress, say a Callas, who can project innocence and cunning in the same turn of phrase, and make contradiction convincing. The Opera Company's Tosca, the Romanian soprano Adina Nitescu, is a singer of solid vocal resources but not up to squaring the circle of this role.

Too sexy for Christ

The young Brazilian tenor Thiago Arancam has plenty of voice for Cavaradossi, too, and temperament to burn, but his lithe sexuality was a little beyond requirement. Though Tosca and Cavaradossi are Bohemian lovers, there's a heavy suggestion of the Christ story in the latter's martyrdom (yet another unstable plot element), and consequently some danger in hamming things up too much.

That leaves Baron Scarpia, prince of villains, who seems a cross between Mozart's Don Giovanni and Verdi's Iago. Like the Don, he's fixated by conquest; like Iago, he doesn't care how he achieves it. Tosca's loathing for him will only make his possession of her the sweeter.

This is genuine evil, the compulsion to humiliate, to annihilate the other. Verdi's Iago rejoices in his inversion of the moral order (respect for persons), but Scarpia is more the pure predator, pleased to gratify his appetites and the desire to express power that lies behind them without much reflection.

Clumsy trek

Baritone Boris Statsenko attacked this role with relish, as one playing a villain should. When he cries out in Act I, "Oh, Tosca, you make me forget God!", part of one's response is the certainty that Scarpia has never known God, and that he takes his ultimate pleasure in apostasy.

Boyd Ostroff's three sets are meant to be the cynosure of the production. Those for Acts I and II, respectively the church scene and that in the Farnese Palace, are impressively mounted. But the fallen eagle symbol in Act III— presumably the imperial standard of the Habsburgs?— and the jerrybuilt, vaguely industrial tower that Tosca climbs to her death are altogether too busy. They make a clumsy trek for the soprano, too, with a swan dive whose staginess undercuts the drama's powerful final chords.

Puccini's score does what opera music does best, which is to soar beyond plot inconsistencies. This is his "Verdian" opera, full of nationalistic flourishes—Arancam certainly belts out his "Italia!", little as his character has prepared us for his emergence as a patriotic hero—and, in the person of Scarpia, an apparent attempt to trump Verdi's Iago, or at least give him a run for his money. At this point in Italy's history— 1900— the Risorgimento was decidedly at a discount, and one can imagine the more sophisticated operagoers of the time coughing discreetly up their sleeves at Cavaradossi's political ardor.

Another credibility problem

But of course we see Tosca as a love story today, and the flag-waving as scenic diversion. It does, however, create another credibility problem.

When Tosca agrees to yield to Scarpia to spare her lover further torture, she is also obliged to betray Angelotti; and he, facing capture, commits suicide. Cavaradossi is furious when he discovers this (all that pain for nothing?), and curses Tosca roundly. Yet in Act III we find no trace of this conflict, and it is the lovers themselves who are united in death.

Of course, opera lovers have surmounted such critical caveats handily for a century and more, and will no doubt continue to do so. If a Tosca richly sung is what you're looking for, this production will serve nicely.